Health and Healthcare at risk.
A few weeks ago, the Vernon Tax Payers Association presented a petition containing 18,000 names to our elected officials asking for adequate funding for Vernon Jubilee Hospital. As I listened to Tony Stamboulieh read the petition I asked myself how it could be that Canada, a rich country, currently ranks among the lowest of 30 OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) countries in the ratio of doctors and acute care beds per thousand people?It is not the lack of funding for billions of dollars are injected in the system every year.
I believe there are 3 major reasons. The first is increasing illness due to environmental toxins. Almost half of Canadians contract cancer. Over 20% of children have asthma. There is an epidemic of obesity in adults and children. Close to one million Canadians have been diagnosed with Multiple Chemical Sensitivities. And before you rush to add that this is due to living longer, let me point out that this is not true. Children are contracting cancers and children are born with increasing problems. We are the first generation whose life expectancy is longer than that of our children. Hundreds of chemicals used in our everyday life carry risks of increased cancer, infertility, learning disabilities and other intellectual impairment, and damage to the immune system. There are less toxic substitutes for these products, but industry lobbies to maintain their registration and legal use drowns out the voices of concerned health professionals and families concerned about health.
The second problem is that doctors treat symptoms rather than the cause of illness and often do so in a way that worsens the problems. Over-prescription of drugs is causing far more deaths than street drugs and is responsible for millions of hospitalization per year. CT scan use is climbing 10% per year, and said to be likely to cause 2-3% of all cancers in the next few years. An abdominal CT scan gives the same intensity of radiation as experienced by Japanese citizens a couple of km away from the Nagasaki atomic bomb and is the equivalent of 500 chest Xrays all given at once. Skyrocketing PharmaCare costs have now eclipsed all other health care expenditures.
The third problem is the lack of adapted programs and systems. There are not enough home support and home care programs and assisted-living services for people with chronic care needs, including many seniors who wish to stay in their own homes and communities. We need to create centralized wait lists, move from a paper system to electronic technology to share information, address the staffing shortage and in some cases, the facility and equipment shortages. The longer people wait for treatment, the sicker they become and the longer they suffer.
This situation is far more dangerous than we may think. The threat of a NAFTA challenge from the American for-profit health care industry cannot be over-estimated. Allowing for-profit health care would be the “thin end of the wedge” that jeopardizes our entire health system. Based on the rules for “national treatment,” if Canada allows increasing numbers of for-profit facilities, we run the risk of losing our entire universal single payer system in a NAFTA challenge. We cannot take that risk. Fixing our health care system means protecting the core elements of universal single-payer health care.
I am thankful to the Vernon Taxpayers' Association for highlighting this issue for it might motivate us to treat the causes rather than the symptoms, and in doing so, protect our national health care system.
Huguette Allen
Green Party MP Candidate
Industry & Small Business Critic.
A few weeks ago, the Vernon Tax Payers Association presented a petition containing 18,000 names to our elected officials asking for adequate funding for Vernon Jubilee Hospital. As I listened to Tony Stamboulieh read the petition I asked myself how it could be that Canada, a rich country, currently ranks among the lowest of 30 OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) countries in the ratio of doctors and acute care beds per thousand people?It is not the lack of funding for billions of dollars are injected in the system every year.
I believe there are 3 major reasons. The first is increasing illness due to environmental toxins. Almost half of Canadians contract cancer. Over 20% of children have asthma. There is an epidemic of obesity in adults and children. Close to one million Canadians have been diagnosed with Multiple Chemical Sensitivities. And before you rush to add that this is due to living longer, let me point out that this is not true. Children are contracting cancers and children are born with increasing problems. We are the first generation whose life expectancy is longer than that of our children. Hundreds of chemicals used in our everyday life carry risks of increased cancer, infertility, learning disabilities and other intellectual impairment, and damage to the immune system. There are less toxic substitutes for these products, but industry lobbies to maintain their registration and legal use drowns out the voices of concerned health professionals and families concerned about health.
The second problem is that doctors treat symptoms rather than the cause of illness and often do so in a way that worsens the problems. Over-prescription of drugs is causing far more deaths than street drugs and is responsible for millions of hospitalization per year. CT scan use is climbing 10% per year, and said to be likely to cause 2-3% of all cancers in the next few years. An abdominal CT scan gives the same intensity of radiation as experienced by Japanese citizens a couple of km away from the Nagasaki atomic bomb and is the equivalent of 500 chest Xrays all given at once. Skyrocketing PharmaCare costs have now eclipsed all other health care expenditures.
The third problem is the lack of adapted programs and systems. There are not enough home support and home care programs and assisted-living services for people with chronic care needs, including many seniors who wish to stay in their own homes and communities. We need to create centralized wait lists, move from a paper system to electronic technology to share information, address the staffing shortage and in some cases, the facility and equipment shortages. The longer people wait for treatment, the sicker they become and the longer they suffer.
This situation is far more dangerous than we may think. The threat of a NAFTA challenge from the American for-profit health care industry cannot be over-estimated. Allowing for-profit health care would be the “thin end of the wedge” that jeopardizes our entire health system. Based on the rules for “national treatment,” if Canada allows increasing numbers of for-profit facilities, we run the risk of losing our entire universal single payer system in a NAFTA challenge. We cannot take that risk. Fixing our health care system means protecting the core elements of universal single-payer health care.
I am thankful to the Vernon Taxpayers' Association for highlighting this issue for it might motivate us to treat the causes rather than the symptoms, and in doing so, protect our national health care system.
Huguette Allen
Green Party MP Candidate
Industry & Small Business Critic.
*******************************************************************************************
No comments:
Post a Comment